


Nobody’s Bulletproof

by charlene66



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: FYI, GSW is Gun Shot Wound, Gen, Spideychelle if you squint, i mean really squint it’s barely there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:29:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14910116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlene66/pseuds/charlene66
Summary: In which Peter Parker gets a GSW, somebody notices, and Tony Stark is damage control.





	Nobody’s Bulletproof

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is literally the first fanfiction i’ve written in 5 years so uh. it’s not the best. but i’m pretty happy with how it turned out, so here it is ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> it kinda starts from flash’s perspective (3rd person) and then shifts to Peter. thanks for reading!

Something about Peter was off today.

Okay, scratch that. Peter’s always a little  _ off _ . But today, especially so. He’d been absent yesterday, much to the chagrin of Mr. Leigh. A research paper worth 20% of the semester grade had been due, and there were late penalties. No exceptions. Accordingly, every student showed up and turned it in. Except Peter.

Peter strolled in and made a beeline for Mr. Leigh, research paper and a pinkish note in hand. The older man crossed his arms, obviously tired of excuse after excuse. Peter’s mouth sputtered like a motor, squeaking out a rehearsed reason as to just why he missed the important day. He handed over the note, looked up with pleading eyes. Mr. Leigh shook his head, still taking the paper, and Peter dejectedly plopped down in his seat two rows behind Flash, right next to Ned.

Flash then turned his attention away. For now. But throughout the day, he couldn’t help but notice Peter’s unusually jittery antics. His eyes were everywhere, like was looking for someone. No,  _ checking  _ for someone. He seemed outright paranoid. His shoulders were straighter, tense; his walk off-kilter. Honestly, Flash was intrigued—not that he’d never admit it. Not in a million years.

Still, he pondered over what excuse Peter would use if confronted:  _ “Sorry, late night. Lots of assignments for Russo…” “I overslept. You know how it is.” _ Or perhaps he’d use the most obvious:  _ “Stark Internship.” _

Flash’s curiosity would finally be quenched in gym class, their last period for the day. The boys shuffled into the locker room to change, as per usual, but Flash parked himself farther in the back of the room, closer to Ned and Peter. The rest of his clique lined up next to him and proceeded to change, not noticing the change in location.

Flash began to change as well and tuned out his friends’ discussions. Instead, he focused on the more pressing conversation to his other side.

“Peter, are you  _ sure  _ you’re alright?” Ned whispered.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You were out for a full day. And I’m not dumb. I’ve noticed you limping around and acting all weird. Dude, what happened?”

“Ned. I’m fine. I swear, it’s no biggie. It’s… I mean, the baddies were a little tougher than usual, is all…” Peter mumbled, his cheeks reddening the tiniest bit. “Just, don’t worry about it. I’m fine,” he reassured Ned, who didn’t ask again.

The boys returned to the gym where the coach was waiting. A minute later, the girls returned as well. Coach Leominster clapped his hands together, gaining the class’s attention. “Alright kids. We’re gonna play some basketball today. Warmup is three laps! Go, go, go!”

Flash shot up from his spot on the bleachers, already raring to go. He followed the rest of the class rather than lead them—he had a plan. Peter, Ned, and MJ fell into place right behind him, nearing his pace. Flash would normally be offended, but he let himself slow down just a bit until he was level with the three, running right alongside Peter. Flash took a long stride and stuck his right foot out, right in Peter’s path. He tripped over Flash’s foot and tumbled to the floor.

“Nice job, Penis Parker!” Flash snickered, speeding back up and rejoining the pack, all the while keeping an eye on him.

MJ knelt down next to Peter. “You alright?” She asked softly, her face barely showing concern beneath a deadpan expression. Ned had fallen a bit behind, and he took a moment to get to Peter’s side. MJ held out her hand to help him up.

“Yeah, all good. Thanks,” Peter said, taking MJ’s hand. She began to stand, helping Peter up, when she suddenly let go, dropping him back onto the ground.

“Oh my God, Peter!” She exclaimed, no deadpan cover this time. There was a  _ disgustingly  _ vivid red streak across Peter’s right shoulder, now only half-covered by the sleeve of his gray t-shirt.

 

**_Two days earlier..._ **

“Karen… please call… Mr. Stark,” Peter sputtered out between coughs. He was lying on the ground, nearly unconscious, sandwiched between brick walls in a narrow alley.

His vision blurred at the edges, clouding the scene, and he could barely make out the two figures near him. He had knocked the burglars out and sloppily webbed them onto the wall, their stolen goods splayed out across from them. Peter already marked it with a beacon the police could find, knowing he couldn’t bring them in himself.

Despite his eventual victory against them, the assailants knew what they were doing. Using a newfangled device specifically engineered to shut down Stark tech, the Spider-man suit’s key systems were disabled, revealing Peter’s vulnerable self underneath.

They stabbed him.

“I’ve contacted Mr. Stark. He will arrive in three minutes. Hang on, Peter.” Karen’s voice made Peter groan. His already-pounding head was not taking kindly to the AI’s voice, no matter how soft and caring it sounded.

And Peter was trying to hang on. The hyper-healing made it a bit better, lessened the pain. But there was still a fucking knife-shaped  _ hole  _ through his torso. A bullet had grazed his arm. The suit was malfunctioning. He was losing blood by the second.

Something blew his scrappy hair out of his face, the gust too strong and too focused to be organic.

“Kid!  _ Kid! _ ” A familiar voice barely registered in Peter’s mind as the world went dark.

**_Back in gym class…_ **

 

“I, uh. Surprise?” Peter couldn’t come up with anything better.

“Dude! You said you were okay! What the hell is that?!” Ned half-asked, half-demanded an explanation.

By now, the scene had attracted the attention of the class.

“Relax, relax. What’s going on?” Coach Leominster asked casually as he strolled over. Flash took a spot right next to him, intent on seeing the source of MJ’s shock. Before Peter could do anything, MJ reached over and tugged up his right shirt sleeve, revealing the wound. A collective sound of disgust sounded from the class.

“Holy hell. That’s a burn if I ever saw one,” the Coach commented, obviously not too affected by it. Flash, however, was  _ definitely _ affected. He’d seen enough crime shows to know what that was.

“Peter, you got  _ shot? _ ” Flash asked, despite his better judgement. The red streak was undeniably leftovers from a bullet.

“No… I just, um. I was making a pancake and I, I tripped. And it burnt me,” Peter stuttered. A beat. “The pan, I mean. Not the cake. The pancake didn’t burn me.”

Coach Leominster sighed. “Look, I don’t care if a grain of rice burnt you, or what. That’s nasty. Go to the nurse.”

“But, Mr.Le—”

“Goooooo. Now,” he commanded, waving his arms around, just wanting him to leave already.

Peter nodded, not taking his eyes off the ground. He knew Leominster would pester him relentlessly until he went; this wasn’t his first injury in gym class. Peter stood up and awkwardly made his leave, the class watching in relative silence. Ned sighed, his face filled with worry. If you squinted, MJ shared the same sentiment underneath the mask.

Peter walked into Nurse Shailey’s office, throwing her a small wave as he leaned against the door.

“Hey, Peter. Coach Leominster said you would be coming. What happened this time?”

Peter knew it was no use lying. She would examine him anyway and find it. He could at least conceal the wound in his torso. “Uh,” he started, unsure of how to continue. He simply raised his shirtsleeve, exposing the wound. She gasped, her hands raising ever so slightly from where they had been resting on her lap. “It only grazed me…” Peter mumbled.

“Peter? You realize what you’re showing me?” She shook her head, speaking both to herself and to Peter. “I need to call your parents. When did this happen?”

“No no no no no, no parents! I mean! Aunt May, my Aunt, she’s—she’s working right now and can’t be disturbed unless it’s a total emergency.” Peter quickly spoke, ignoring the second half of the Nurse’s statement. Besides, that wasn’t a total lie: Aunt May  _ was  _ at work right now. However, he knew she’d drop anything at the drop of a hat if Peter’s health was involved.

“Peter. I think this qualifies as an emergency.”

“No, no it doesn’t! It doesn’t even hurt! I—I have another contact anyway!” Peter spoke without thinking because he was so desperate to keep this from Aunt May. There was no second emergency contact. Nurse Shailey was going to see, Aunt May would find out. This is where everything falls apart. This is—

“Here, the second contact is loading now.”

Peter peered over her shoulder at the screen. The file loaded, showing a very familiar number. Above it, it read: “Tony Stark”.

“Peter, seriously? You can’t just look up Tony Stark’s number and pretend he’s your emergency contact. This is serious! I’m calling your Aunt. Whatever she’s doing can’t be more important than this.” Nurse Shailey was already tabbing out of the listing to find Aunt May’s number, but Peter put his hand over hers on the mouse, stopping her. He immediately retracted his hand, realizing his mistake.

“Sorry! I’m sorry, sorry… but it’s real, I swear. Call him, he’ll know it’s me, I swear,” Peter pleaded.  _ Just, please don’t call Aunt May. _

Nurse Shailey tilted her head down, and looked up with just her eyes at Peter, copying a signature MJ stare to make him uncomfortable. It was working.

“I’ll even call him for you,” Peter meekly suggested.

When Nurse Shailey did nothing, Peter invited himself to take the phone, calling the number he knew by heart. She watched in interest, a ghost of a smirk behind her lips.  _ As if this kid would know Tony Stark. _

The phone beeped once… twice… three times… Peter was about to drop the phone and give up—then, it clicked.

“Hi, is this Midtown? Did something happen?” Peter grinned ear to ear as Nurse Shailey’s eyes widened.

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” Peter asked sheepishly. It dawned on him that he had no clue what to say…

“Kid! What’d you do this time? I’m kind of in a super important  _ and super boring  _ meeting,” Tony joked, whispering the  _ super boring  _ bit.

Nurse Shailey reached over and took the phone from Peter’s hands before he responded. He decided not to fight it.

“Hi, this is Nurse Shailey with Midtown Tech. Peter here had to be called out of gym class. Care to know why?” She spoke as calmly as one could when they were talking to Tony motherfuckin’ Stark. There was a breath on the other side of the line, signalling that Tony was about to speak. Whether Nurse Shailey didn’t notice or chose to ignore it, Peter didn’t know. “He has a gunshot wound. It’s about a week into healing, but he should  _ not  _ be here. 16-year-old kid gets shot, school doesn’t even tell me. God…” She put her head in her hands, realizing how grave this seemed. She looked up at Peter, silently asking,  _ How did this even happen? _

“Oh yeah that.” Tony coughed. “Uh, there was a bit of an accident… at the Stark. Internship. He’s fine.” He spoke as nonchalantly as he could. That seemed believable, right?

“A  _ bit of an accident?  _ Look, I know you have crazy people running around that tower, but how in the hell did you let a gun go off? This is insane. He still needs treatment!” She dropped the facade and spoke her mind. “I don’t know what goes on in that  Internship of yours. But you can’t be endangering high school  _ sophomores, _ ” she paused to take a breath. “I’m calling an EMT.” Peter’s face dropped.

“No, no that’s not necessary. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Now just you w—”

_ Beep. _

Tony hung up. Peter had to do his best to keep a smile off his face. 16-year-olds shouldn’t get shot, but they definitely shouldn’t  _ smile  _ about it.

Nurse Shailey just looked up at him, confused, sympathetic, and a little scared. Weird kid.

“Well.” She was at a loss for words. She just told off Tony Stark for possibly putting a bullet in a sophomore. What a wild life this is.

Peter had awkwardly sat across from her, lazing on the cot, and just two minutes later the entrance pinged. Nurse Shailey rang the person in, and Tony Stark himself strolled into the office. He glared at Peter, who laughed nervously.

Tony sat down next to Peter and raised his shirtsleeve, knowing exactly where the wound was. “This one looks better already. See? You’re fine.” Another two, maybe three days and it would be all gone. He stood up and lightly ruffled Peter’s hair, turning to speak to the Nurse. “Miss Shailey, I assure you that Peter’s alright. He’s been taken care of by Dr. Banner and Dr. Cho—the best of the best—and they say he’ll be fully healed in no time.”

“Okay…” Nurse Shailey replied, still somewhat in shock.

“Can I go back to class now?” Peter asked enthusiastically, seeming lighter now that Tony was in the room. Nurse Shailey nodded wordlessly, not wanting to protest. She was incredulous. Peter and Tony walked out toward the gymnasium, gesturing to each other wildly and talking a million words a minute. Peter didn’t bother looking back to see her expression. He could guess: slack jaw, wide eyes, mouth agape.

Right outside the gym doors, they came to a stop. “So. I thought you were gonna keep the whole thing under wraps.” Tony asked, dropping the more playful attitude of their prior conversation.

“I did! Well, I—I mean I tried,” Peter didn’t meet Tony’s eyes, ashamed. When Peter didn’t get a response, he dared to look up. Tony was still awaiting an answer. “It was nothing, really. I just tripped. Bad luck, I guess.” Peter offered.

“You can stop a bus with your bare hands and you still trip in Phys. Ed.” Tony sighed dramatically, knowing there was more Peter wasn’t telling him.

“Ok, ok, someone tripped  _ me _ ,” He amended.

Tony’s joking air returned. “Trip him back for me, will ya?”

Just then, the gym doors bust open, a slightly red-faced and panting Flash Thompson behind them. The sound of basketballs being passed and going through hoops followed him.

For a good ten seconds, nothing was said, until Flash broke the silence:

“Holy shit.”

 


End file.
